Betrayal On Orbis 2: From The Spectrum Universe (The Softwire Series)

by PJ Haarsma

  It was definitely some sort of storage room, just like the one at Odran’s. Rows of items were stored behind thick glass doors. Some items even gave off their own light, casting gold and green shadows around the room. Some things lay dead inside their glass coffins, while others defied description. I saw locked metal boxes, exotic glass jars filled with powder, and strange alien devices that could only be used as weapons, or so I thought.

  “Who would leave this stuff behind?” Max asked no one in particular.

  “Who cares?” Switzer answered, yanking at one of the glass doors. “Grab something to break this with, Dalton.”

  Switzer’s mind now seemed focused on bigger and better things. Nugget and the tiny crystal were no longer on his agenda.

  “Do you really think you should do that, Switzer?” Theodore asked.

  “Do you really think you should do that, Switzer?” Switzer repeated mockingly. “Why do you act like such a little one? What’s gonna happen to us if we get caught doing something they don’t like? Look around you, knudnik. We’re already in prison.”

  “It could be worse,” I told him.

  Switzer turned on me. “What? They’ll kill us? Do you really think they would do that? Not with you here. You’re their little favorite, always fixing things for them. As much as I figure, we’ve got a clean ticket thanks to you.” Dalton handed Switzer a metal tube, which he immediately swung at the glass. It shattered into a million pieces. “Oh, and by the way, in case I’ve never said it, thanks. Now get out of the way if you’re not going to help. This stuff has to be worth something.”

  “Here’s your crystal back,” Ketheria said. Nugget stood behind her, eyeing the crystal in her open hand.

  Switzer pulled out a crystalline orb that pulsed in his hands. “You can keep it now. A gift for that little freak leading us here.”

  “JT, look at this,” Theodore called out. I looked across the room to see Theodore pluck a thick, leathery belt out of a drawer.

  I watched Theodore’s eyes widen as he slipped the discarded treasure around his waist.

  “This is one, isn’t it, JT?” Theodore whispered, running his fingers along the tiny little compartments embedded in the belt.

  I knew what it was; so did Max. We’d both seen one before. Theodore wished for one once, when Weegin received the fake replicator. He fantasized about using it to get off the ring.

  “I think it is,” I told him.

  “Do you know how it works?” Theodore asked me, as if he was talking in his sleep. “It feels like it’s alive.”

  I walked over to him. “Theodore, be careful.”

  The warning snapped Theodore out of his trance. He slipped the belt off and held it out for me.

  “You’re right,” he said.

  I cradled the Space Jumper’s belt. Up close it looked like stone but felt as supple as water. The device was damp to the touch.

  “Try it, JT. Use it to jump away from here and then come back and take us with you.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Switzer growled. He walked over and snatched the belt away.

  “Be careful with that thing,” Max warned as Switzer tried it on.

  “Shut up,” he snapped, and we all backed away from Switzer. Even Dalton moved away.

  “Switzer, listen,” I said.

  “No, you listen. This is the fastest way. This is my chance to get off this stupid ring,” he said, pushing at anything he could find on the belt.

  “Switzer, don’t!” I shouted.

  “Don’t what?” he spat. “You only want the thing for yourself. Well, I’m the one getting out of here.”

  “What about me?” Dalton asked.

  “Here,” he said, and tossed the sack to Dalton. He didn’t even hesitate to sell Dalton out. “Sorry, I might need the crystal where I’m going.” And he snatched the crystal back from Ketheria.

  “You don’t know how to work it,” Max said.

  “Can’t be that hard,” he replied, caressing the belt.

  Dalton stared at the sack Switzer tossed him. His hands shook. Dalton took Switzer’s side even when he knew the malf was wrong. Switzer had used him. He looked up and tossed the sack back to Switzer. “Keep it,” he mumbled.

  “Suit yourself,” Switzer replied.

  Something inside me told me to make him stop. I needed him to stop. It felt wrong; it felt bad. But I didn’t know what to say. I thought of Toll Town. I thought of all the aliens, who just like us, wanted away from Orbis. But I also thought of my promise — my promise not to tell anyone. Wouldn’t Toll understand if I told them? I had to take that chance.

  “There’s another way, Switzer,” I blurted.

  “What other way?” he scoffed.

  “What are you talking about? Another way for what?” Max said.

  “To get off this ring,” I told her. “I know how we can all leave. Right now. Together. And without that thing,” I said, pointing to the Space Jumper’s belt around Switzer’s waist.

  “You’re lying,” he said.

  “I’m not. I’ve seen it. I’ve been there. Toll took me. He runs this place in the tank where other knudniks can go to escape.”

  There, I’d said it. I broke my promise.

  “What are you talking about?” Max said.

  I looked at Ketheria. She stared at me. What are you saying? Her eyes seemed to say.

  I couldn’t take it back now. I had betrayed Toll’s trust. Something inside me hardened.

  “Where did Toll take you?” Theodore asked.

  “How?” Max added.

  “But that water almost killed you,” Dalton reminded me.

  “And now you want us to believe you’ve been swimming in it? Get out of here. You’re just afraid to use this thing,” Switzer sneered. “Or maybe you like it here.”

  Switzer pulled at the belt and pried at its small compartments.

  “Switzer, don’t. I’m telling you the truth. Toll gave me a special suit to protect me. He took me there, I swear. Look!” I told him, and pulled out the bag of toonbas I’d gotten in Toll Town. “I got these there. Have you ever seen toonbas on Orbis 2?”

  “Where did you get those?” Max exclaimed.

  “Isn’t anyone listening? In the tank. In Toll Town. This alien, Tang, already invited me to stay there. He couldn’t let everyone come, but maybe we can convince him.”

  “He’s not gonna do it for free,” Switzer said. “Why do you think we’ve been trading for stuff? No one does anything on this ring for free, dumbwire. Look around you.” Switzer tapped his finger to his forehead. “Start using it.”

  Then Switzer found something on the belt — a small blue crystal that glowed when his finger went near it. I froze, staring at him.

  “Don’t, Switzer,” I whispered.

  “All Space Jumpers are softwires,” Theodore warned him. “You’re not a softwire. Let JT try it first.”

  “You would like that, wouldn’t you? Then your friend here can come back and get each of you,” Switzer said. “I know you don’t like me, Turnbull. I don’t like you either, and I’m never going to trust you to come back for me.”

  Switzer tugged on the belt and went for the crystal imbedded in the alien material.

  “Stop!” I yelled, and reached for Switzer with my right arm.

  Everything happened very slowly. It was as if time stopped. Even the air ceased moving. The crystal on Switzer’s belt sparkled and flashed a bright blue. The light spread out from the crystal and completely surrounded Switzer. My arm was now inside the glowing blue sphere. It went cold and I looked at Switzer. His pupils were dilated, and his mouth was frozen in a scream. For once Switzer really knew he’d done something wrong.

  The white from his eyeballs clouded over his pupils, and his neck stiffened. His hair shot straight out and turned gray right before my eyes. I could see my arm, but I could no longer feel it.

  Max screamed. Or maybe it was Ketheria. It was a slow-building scream, as if the sound waves took an e
ternity to reach my ears.

  Then Switzer was gone. Completely. Vanished. There wasn’t a trace of him. He got his wish. I don’t know where he went, but he wasn’t here anymore.

  And my right arm was gone, too.

  There was no pain — at first. Actually, I was shocked to look down my shoulder and not see my elbow or my hand. It was just gone — a perfectly neat slice just below my shoulder.

  Then blood.

  Then another scream, this time much quicker, much louder. Time rushed back like a rocket.

  And then the pain. Lots and lots of pain. First I thought it couldn’t get any worse, but the pain just kept coming.

  That familiar blackness rushed forward. It started behind my eyeballs, creeping around the edges. I felt the toonbas slip from my left hand, and my knees went weak as the darkness shut down my brain.

  Again?

  “You can’t begin to imagine the severity of this situation.”

  “None of this is my fault.”

  “Everything is your fault. They are your responsibility. Do I need to remind you where my orders come from?”

  “We have had this argument before. This is where I remind you whom you are talking to.”

  “And this is where I tell you I don’t care!”

  “So the rumors are true?”

  “Yes. The tunnels led to a refugee camp inside the crystal-cooling tank. It was quite impressive actually.”

  “The Council will be pleased.”

  “The children will have to be put down. They have broken Keeper decree.”

  “Before the Festival of the Harvest?”

  “They were obviously trying to escape. The Council will want to use them as examples. The humans must be destroyed.”

  “The Softwire, too?”

  “I know. It seems like such a waste.”

  “The big one won’t like it.”

  “Despite what he thinks, it’s not for him to like.”

  “The Softwire was at the camp. Where else would he have gotten these?”

  “Candies? You’re going to kill them over candies?”

  “Keeper decree gives the Citizens full authority for this.”

  “They’re children. And they’re humans.”

  “Humans have yet to be proven useful. Contrary to what some may think, they are workers. Workers on Orbis under Keeper decree, nothing more.”

  “Are you kidding me? You? What if the Ancients are right? You more than anyone should understand this.”

  “The children have been questioned. They are the ones who are lying. None of them will explain the tear in the time stream before they were found. I see no alternative.”

  “The alternative is to fix the Softwire, destroy the camp, and get ready for the Harvest. Those tunnels need to be cleared anyway. Am I not right? . . . Am I not right?”

  “The flow . . .”

  “You have no intention of releasing the Samirans, do you?”

  “We have every —”

  “That bucket of bolts has deceived you. You’re as bad as the Council.”

  Johnny Turnbull? Can you hear me?

  Vairocina?

  Yes.

  Where am I?

  Sleep now. It will be over soon.

  I dreamed of a wave, like the waves in Toll’s tank when they first dragged me out of the water. In my dream I could see everything, hear everything — the rushing water and the people shouting. But the sounds and images faded as I felt a wave of consciousness sweep across my body.

  “He’s getting stronger,” someone said.

  “When he’s ready, I want all of them stained.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “You have no choice. It’s that or death.”

  “That’s ridiculous! It’s dangerous to stain them, let alone unfair. These children have done nothing. How can I convince you of that?”

  “It has already been decided.”

  And then the deep, cold darkness took me under again. I dreamed of Toll Town. I dreamed of Tang. I wanted to be with them. People were leaving Orbis, and I wanted to go with them. Everyone was getting ready, even Switzer. I followed Tang through the streets of the underwater shelter. All the other aliens waved at us and smiled.

  “Good luck!” one shouted.

  “May your journey be guided by cosmic streams of love,” a Nagool master said, his arms outstretched as he shuffled beside us.

  “Where’s Toll?” I asked Tang, but he would not respond. “Tang, where’s Toll?”

  I ran up next to Tang and reached out for his shoulder. He was cold. I turned him toward me and stepped back. His thin skin was streaked with blue tears, and his eyes glowed from excessive crying.

  “This is your fault!” he screamed at me.

  “What is?”

  “That!”

  Tang pointed over my shoulder to the buildings of Toll Town. Giant flying machines systematically destroyed each building. The flying monsters, all metal and bone, swung enormous chains, at the end of which were huge, gnarled spheres. When the balls struck, the building exploded, flinging debris everywhere.

  Aliens screamed and ran from the monstrous machines, but Tang marched on through the flying chunks of concrete and metal. Water rushed in as the crystal ceiling cracked, but still I followed Tang.

  He led us to the portal where I’d first arrived with Toll.

  “There you go. Are you happy?” Tang said, pointing into the water. But I could not look. I was afraid — afraid of what he was pointing at. Was it Toll? Was he dead? I could only look at Tang.

  “Look!” he screamed, but I wouldn’t.

  “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want to break my promise, but Switzer . . .” I looked at Max and Theodore, but they stared into the water; everyone stared into the water.

  “JT?”

  I couldn’t look. What if it was Toll? my mind screamed.

  “JT? Can you wake up?”

  “Vairocina?”

  The sound of my friend’s voice yanked me out of my nightmare. I opened my eyes. Where was I? This was not my room. Silvery control panels lined the walls of the dimly lit space, and there was a medicinal smell to everything. My sleeper did not have a lid except for a dome that circled the headboard. A row of empty sleepers lined the wall.

  I sat up. At least I tried to sit up, but my right arm offered no assistance. It simply lay at my side for a moment before moving, almost as if it possessed a mind of its own, a mind that wasn’t paying any attention. A thick metal band of sensors and flickering lights clung to my arm a few centimeters above my elbow. I tugged on the device, but it would not budge.

  I attempted to wipe the sweat from my forehead, but my arm felt like it was asleep, prickling before coming awake. And then, as if trying to catch up, my right hand did as I wanted and wiped away the sweat. It took a moment for the wetness on my fingertips to register.

  “You are conscious ahead of schedule,” a mechanical voice said, but there was no one else in the room. I knew that on the Rings of Orbis that didn’t mean I was alone. “Keep the arm moving. That is exactly what you need.”

  “Who’s there?” I said.

  The dome that circled the head of my sleeper hummed to life. A thin, pale yellow energy field sprang from the headboard and engulfed my sleeper.

  “I am here,” a voice said, the energy shield sparkling with each word.

  The outline of a round face collected in the field over my head. It darted back and forth as if reading O-dats in some dimension I could not see.

  “What are you looking at?” I asked.

  “Well, you, of course. I need to know why you are awake.”

  “My arm isn’t,” I informed him. “It’s like my arm is still asleep. What’s this thing around it?”

  “That is not your arm,” the computer replied.

  “What do you mean it’s not my arm?” I said.

  “I mean . . . it’s not your arm.”

  The round alien face in the energy field stopped over the center o
f my sleeper. Its large eyes looked in different directions at the same time while continuing to search controls I couldn’t see. I willed my arm to move. Reluctantly it positioned itself in front of me. It certainly looked like my arm. I compared it to my left arm. It was identical in every detail except, when I held it up to the light, the arm was semitransparent. The light passed through my skin, making it appear grayer and slightly blue. I could see shiny silver bones, flickering lights, and computer hardware. He was right; this wasn’t my arm.

  “I did a nice job, won’t you agree?”

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  “Your species, if I have researched correctly, would call me the doctor, or a doctor, or even Doc.”

  “What does your species call you?”

  “Oh, no need for flattery. I am a computer. I will give you the best care programmable.”

  “Did I hurt my arm?”

  “You do not remember? One moment, please . . . that’s right. The incident has been dampened in your cerebral cortex. Your simple brain will take some time before the chemicals wear off. You will remember in time.”

  What was this computerized first-aid box talking about? The last thing I remember was coming back from . . . Where was I coming back from? I was . . . I couldn’t remember.

  “That arm, that very expensive arm, is the property of the Rings of Orbis,” the computer doctor said.

  “Orbis? Where is my real arm, then?”

  “I am restricted from giving you that information. Three fingers, please.”

  “What?”

  I did not understand. Why was my arm (yes, my arm — it was attached to my body) — why was it acting so weird?

  “Please hold up three fingers. I need to run a diagnostic procedure to understand why you are awake.”

  I did as I was told. “I think my nightmare startled me,” I said. I felt a little embarrassed. And then I felt embarrassed for being embarrassed in front of a computer. I tried to shake it off. After a moment my right hand extended three fingers.

  “Explain ‘nightmare,’” asked the doctor.

  “Um . . .” I didn’t feel like talking anymore.